The below is a guest post.
In one of its articles, Daze Info explains that around 75% of the total population is on social media. With more than quarter of the world’s population using it, social media has made it easy for small businesses and startups to level the playing field, without having to break a bank.
But with so many brands dotting the social media landscape and vying for user’s attention, a mere presence on social media is no longer enough, especially if you’re a startup. You’ve got to fight tooth and claw with other brands. Remember, catching the user’s attention and holding it long enough is the name of the game on social media landscape.
The Social Media Hat reveals that it’s vital that your social media page is able to capture your target audience’s interest right from the get-go. This is important because if users do not get the experience that they expect and demand from your social media page, they will migrate to one of your competitors’ page and you’ll lose a potential consumer even before you realize it. Remember, successful startups understand the value of a strategic social media plan to engage potential customers.
But strategizing a social media plan to summon attention and interest from your target audience is easier said than done. If you too have been looking for a plan to ensure a solid presence on social media turf, read between the lines for 5 social media secrets to successfully manipulate social media to your advantage.
- Potential of Design
Since the social media is filled to brim with social media pages trying to capture the attention of target audiences, it is vital to ensure a social media page design that can take vital elements of your brand and showcase it to the world in a way that’s even more awesome. And if your social media page design is impactful, your target audience will have no choice but to fall in love with your brand. In addition, Search engine optimization [SEO] plays a leading role in visibility of your social media page. A well-designed page is always SEO-friendly, meaning that search engines can easily crawl and index the page for its ranking in the search results. Therefore, a startup social media page’s prospects of gaining a sizeable market share by engaging audiences and being visible on search engines depends largely extent on its design.
It pays to ensure that every detail of your social media page, right from its color scheme to the content, seamlessly blends together to make visitors curious about your brand. But most people will argue that finding such creative social media page designs within the molds of a set budget is not an easy task. Well, they are right to some extent. However, with the ever-increasing number of crowdsourcing contest based sites, it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Contests on social media page design by Designhill, for one, offers endless opportunities for that.
- Posting it Right
Well, it’s almost a thumb rule to post content on your social media page account. However, it is vital to ensure that you only post unique, engaging and interesting content. Traditional strategies suggest posting as many times as you can with the purpose of gaining higher page ranking on search engines. But, when it comes to posting, it is essential to play smart and not just follow others.
Search engines rank your social media content not merely on how many times you submit your posts, but on how many people have shared, liked or pinned your posts. This should prompt you to post quality content with lots of fresh and highly useful information regarding your startup business. In addition, lay extra emphasis on the content that aims at solving problems that your potential customers often face when using different products or services. And when you post such content, do well to ensure the right details.
Remember, only right details can set apart your brand from the crowd. But how can you tell the details of your content are the right ones? It’s when your social can successfully speak to your target audience and resonate well with them. Ensure that your content shares your audience’s experience and voice.
- Magic of Consistency
Should your startup company make its presence felt on social media all the time? It makes sense to mull over this vital question very carefully. Many get overwhelmed by the fact that social media is an enormous place to handle. A general marketing advice, however, is that your startup must maintain a steady presence. People are likely to ignore your business if they don’t find you consistent.
So, schedule regular posts and keep measuring the level of engagement your social media posts garner. You may explore tools such as SocialBro and Hootsuite’s to evaluate your social media strategy in just one click. Such tools let you know about your recent engagement with the people and your success rate in engaging with them.
In case you come to know that your customers do not engage as per your expectations on a particular social channel, then it may be because you have been ignoring that channel. Make sure that you post unique, fresh and engaging content on your social media sites and communicate well with your visitors more often.
- Grand Scheme of Things
Do well to set your business goals much before you start your social media campaign. As a startup, it makes sense to set realistic goals. Better, dissect the long term goals in smaller short terms ones so that you can easily track the impact of your strategies on your social media channels.
A right move to setting such goals is to go for a practical approach to social messaging. Such a serious and professional approach is preferable over more easygoing presence on the social sites. And, think of your target audience when you chalk out your message.
In addition, your company culture must be visible on your social sites and message. People want to know more about how you conduct your business. This way, they get a feeling of to what extent your startup is useful to them. However, despite maintaining a professional approach, a playful manner of your message is sometimes refreshing for the customers. So, experiment with your approach to messaging on the social pages.
- Battle for Attention
The gigantic size of social media compels most businesses, especially startups, to think if people care who they are or what they do. After all, people may easily lose sight of your startup in the overcrowded place. To address this genuine concern, your company should make genuine human connection with the potential customers on the social sites.
A sound strategy to connect with people is to show human face of your company. Your social media audiences long to know more about the people behind your startup. Therefore, your social site account should deliver exciting details about your employees and their contribution to your business. Make sure to highlight their human side more when giving hints of their professional skills.
By showing human faces of your company, you can connect relatively easily with your target audiences. Once you engage them, it’s time that you convert each one of them into brand ambassadors of your business. Well, this word of mouth publicity is sure to set your humble startup at par with the league of Big Brands.
In addition, posting images that exhibit your services or products must also be part of the list; as such images put forth your brand’s personality before your target audiences. Also, do well to use images that tickle red the emotions of your audience. According to Influence Agents, images increase the recognition of brands– which is why image selection is taken seriously in the art of Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook design by Designhill and other crowdsourcing sites. In addition, the same study showed that professional social media page designs with relevant images experienced more growth as compared to other pages.
You can be present on either every social site or select just a few amongst the many to target your audiences. A good move will be to choose globally renowned social channels and explore them strategically by keeping the above-mentioned points in mind. Also, note that not all the social channels are suitable to every business. For example, if you run a Business to Business startup, LinkedIn could be your best choice. Similarly, if your business needs extensive marketing, then it makes sense to explore sites such as Facebook or Twitter.
These are just some of the many major considerations that your startup should take into account to catch your customer’s attention and hold it long enough until they’ve paid for your product or service.
Author bio: Jyoti Bhandari a blogger. In my spare time, I generally write on topics concerning design, E-commerce, startups. When not writing, I love spending my time playing video games and watching cartoon movies!
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